Death's Rain
by Ranowa Hikura
Summary: AU in which Riza was killed during the Promised Day. In the midst of a breakdown, Roy shows up in the middle of the night at Ed's place and tells him to hold onto his gun for him before he does something he can't take back. Implied past Royai, drabble, warning for discussion of suicide.


This is me, trying to forge an attack at one of my greatest weaknesses. My word count is always obscene, partly because I always always always delve deep into exposition- it's part of the reason I fail to write drabbles. I really tried to cut out anything at all unnecessary here. It ended up still breaking 1000 words, and I'm just not 100% happy with it, but- we all have to start somewhere, right? I hope you enjoy!

 **Warning: discussion of suicide**

When Ed answered his door at three in the morning, he wasn't really sure what he had expected, but Roy Mustang, soaked to the bone, eyes bloodshot, breath stinking of cheap liquor, and gun in hand, was not it.

The colonel just stared at him for a long moment, rainwater dripping down gaunt and pale cheeks, then held out his gun without a single word of explanation. Ed heard the unspoken order to take it in nothing more than his authoritative stare.

"Please," he whispered, and then, the power of an officer's command dissolved into the desperation of a broken man.

Ed could refuse Colonel Mustang's orders any day of the week with a smile.

He could never refuse this.

Roy's hand was , the gun was even colder, and its weight was uncomfortable and unwanted in his hand, but the moment it was out of the colonel's grip, the both of them breathed easier, and the man looked so immeasurably relieved to have it gone it hurt Ed to see it.

"I'm sorry," Roy mumbled, not resisting as Ed pulled him inside out of the rain and nearly manhandled him to the couch. "I'm sorry. I know it's not what she'd want, but I- I can't. I can't... I'm sorry, Ed."

Ed. Not Fullmetal.

Swallowing, unable to bring himself to call the man out on it, Ed just moved to swiftly stow the colonel's gun out of reach before returning to his side, trying to ignore the mumbled apologies as he worked the soaking wet coat off him and tossed a blanket at his shoulders. Roy barely reacted at all, still staring numbly at the opposite wall, mouth moving in a senseless whisper under his breath. Ed reached out weakly with a towel to drag it once through his dripping, black mop of hair, but the colonel did not even move or seem to be aware of the action at all.

With some effort, Ed swallowed back the anger he wanted to scream at the man, knowing it would do no good, and instead just knelt to crouch in front of him. He kept his silence, knowing that waiting was all he could do here and forcing himself to be content with it. This wasn't about him. This was about Roy, and yelling at him now would accomplish nothing except making himself feel just the tiniest bit better.

That wasn't something that mattered, right now.

The colonel finally twitched a little, the motion barely distinguishable from a shiver, but his hollow eyes lifted from staring into nothing to meet his. The empty, black depths chilled him to his core, and he had to stop himself from looking away.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again, and his hands were still shaking, but now it was no longer from the cold. "I know I have to keep going. I know I have to become Fuhrer. She told me I had to... she _died_ for it... she died for me, so I can't, I, I can't- I can't just _stop."_ The focus of his gaze dissolved into nothing, and the composure he'd barely managed to cling to until now began to crack until it shattered like glass."I can't stop, but... Ed... I think I want to. ...I want to stop trying, Ed."

He started shaking even harder at the admission, voice falling even lower and trembling with hopelessness. Roy abruptly dropped his head into his hands, fingers digging into his hair, and in his voice Ed heard the desperation of a man with nowhere else to turn.

"I'm just... I'm really, _really_ tired, Ed. I'm so tired of _trying._...She wouldn't want me to stop, she would never let me do that, but I... I'm not sure how much longer I can do this." He stopped again, shaking so hard Ed feared he just might break. "You have to promise me you won't let me stop, Ed. ... _Please."_

Once again, it wasn't an order from Colonel Mustang, but a desperate and broken request from just the man sitting before him now.

And once again, Ed was left with no idea what to say.

"Co... Colonel..."

Roy slowly raised his head again, haunted stare piercing into him in an instant. The depth of need and exhaustion betrayed in his eyes was one of the hardest things Ed had ever had to see, because he already knew there was nothing he could do for him.

"Please," the man whispered again, but Ed had no words to answer him.

When no assurances came, Roy started talking again, his voice rising with the climax of sorrow and grief. "She said she'd be with me to the end. She promised me she would never leave! She promised me that and I... without her...!" Bloodshot eyes were already watering, rainwater trickling down his face, but when his voice cracked, his gaze wavered with it, and the water that welled then was not from the storm outside. "I can't do this without her." Admission made in barely a whisper; words trembling under the weight of the loneliness of agony. "I tried. I'm sorry. I _can't."_

And in that murmured spell of despair, all Ed could see in him, the renowned hero of Ishval, the infamous Flame Alchemist, the future Fuhrer of Amestris, the dammed near _invincible_ Roy Mustang- was defeat.

The defeat of one just a few more bad nights away from simply giving up.

Coming from Roy, it sounded so undeniably _wrong,_ it made Ed want to scream.

But screaming got him nowhere. He'd tried it at the colonel, before. Tried it when he'd found the man sitting surrounded by whiskey in the middle of the day in his own apartment.

It had gotten a half-empty bottle hurled at his head and the door slammed shut in his face.

Screaming might have done something if there'd been a spark in the colonel to catch fire, if he'd been able to tempt and tick him off enough to _finally_ get him to fight back. But it did nothing, if there was no spark left to ignite flame.

It seemed when his lieutenant had died, she had taken it with her.

Roy's eyes finally flickered away from his, drifting towards where Ed had left his gun, then lowered to meet the floor. Ed at last found just enough anger left in him to harden his gaze into a glare, and the colonel's shoulders trembled again.

"I want you to hold onto that for me, Ed," and his voice was a whisper again, so faint he had to strain to hear it. "That's an _order._...Tonight, I... I could barely make myself come here at all. I almost..." He looked away again and clenched shaking hands into fists, despair descending like a shroud over his visage. "I'm worried that the next time, I..."

He wasn't able to finish his sentence, this time, but Ed didn't need him to.

He already knew that Roy had spent much of this night with his gun held to his head, trying to work up the nerve to pull the trigger.

Next time, it would simply be best if he didn't have a gun at all.

"I'll hold onto it for you, Colonel," he promised quietly. His voice sounded miserable and horrible even to his own ears; he couldn't imagine how it sounded to Roy, but he couldn't work up enough strength to care. This _was_ miserable. This _was_ horrible. Trying to sound otherwise was pointless.

Roy didn't look as if he had even heard him, and Ed leaned forward a little, not about to let him go on thinking that that was the end of that. He _wasn't_ alone in this, damn it. "Oi, Colonel. _Oi."_ He waited until Roy lifted his head to look at him again, then forced his mouth into a sad, struggling little parody of a smile. "If you ever come asking for it, I'll hit you so hard you won't be able to even see straight enough to use it. Got it?"

But Roy just looked at him, no quips about striking a superior officer dancing in now flat eyes and no sarcastic jab about his height rising to play. The cold emptiness of his stare was resounding enough to make Ed be the first to look away, swallowing uncomfortably, and only then did the colonel bow his head to look away as well. His shoulders started to shake again, breaths coming in shallow and fast, high pitched gasps of unsteady mourning, and he nodded once, dead, pale features slowly contorting with agony.

"Good. ...Th-That's what R... Riza w-ould have done, too."

His voice broke again, and this time, everything fragile that had still somehow been holding him together broke with it, and he collapsed to bury his head in his hands and give one single, miserable sob.

The longing and grief was so powerful it hurt to witness, felt as if it was something distinctly intimate that he hadn't earned the right to see, and he knew then it didn't matter whether the colonel believed he was alone or not.

This wasn't something he could fix. This was something only one person's presence could ever heal, for Roy- and that one person could never be there for him again.

 _I'm not Riza. ...I'm not her, and I never will be._

 _But, he's still willing to try, if not for himself, for her. That's enough, for now. It has to be._

 _As long as he's still willing to try, as long as he can still ask for me to do for him what she no longer can..._

 _I'll be dammed if I let him down._

Ed sat with him in silence for the rest of the night.


End file.
